Burrishoole Friary
September 8th 2008 07:54
When In Ireland you can be sure you will be taken to visit a graveyard. We arrived at Burrishoole Friary just as the sun was setting behind a particularly large group of rather ominous looking grey clouds. The wind was fresh and the air tinted pinks and purples, as it is during one of those perfect sunset displays Mother Nature treats us to every now and again.
Behind the Friary was a pool of water which became an ever changing canvass, capturing the display as it changed overhead. Tiny ripples lapped at the sides of a red boat which was moored in the middle of the pond, appearing a little out of place in scenery which looked as though it only housed the graves of those long ago departed, no signs of other human occupation in sight.
The plaque infront of the Friary stated the following:
Dominican friars first came to Ireland in 1224. By the time of the suppression of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1540, they had stablished 38 houses. This Dominican Friary, dedicated to St MAry, was founded around 1470 by Richard de Burgo of Turlough, Lord MacWilliam Oughter. Permission from the Pope had not been sought for its foundation - an oversights for which the community faced a threat of excommunication - but in 1486 the Pope instructed the Archbishop of Tuam to forgive the friars.
All that remains today is the church and the eastern wall of the cloister, in which the monks walked and meditated. All the domestic buildings - the kitchen, the dormitories and the refectory (dining hall) - have been destroyed. The church consists of a nave and chancel, a south transept and a low tower. A 15th century bronze seal, which may have been the official seal of the friary, was found embedded in a window of the upstairs dormitory.
Burrishoole - from Buirios Umhail (the Burgage of Umhall)
All that remains today is the church and the eastern wall of the cloister, in which the monks walked and meditated. All the domestic buildings - the kitchen, the dormitories and the refectory (dining hall) - have been destroyed. The church consists of a nave and chancel, a south transept and a low tower. A 15th century bronze seal, which may have been the official seal of the friary, was found embedded in a window of the upstairs dormitory.
Burrishoole - from Buirios Umhail (the Burgage of Umhall)
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